Mother Daughter Program aims to give head start to girls who dream of going to college

Posted: May 12, 2010 - 8:10am

Two and a half years ago, Jessica Flores found a way to establish a stronger bond with her daughter, Natalie, and, at the same time, learn how to help her go to college.

The mother of three said she had an excellent experience with the program.

“It was very inspirational to hear people who’d been there before, to hear them talk about how they made it,” Flores said.

Improving relationships and educating mothers on the possibilities of college for their daughters are key to the Lubbock Betty Anderson branch of the American Association of University Women’s Mother Daughter Program, which offers a leg-up to sixth-grade girls looking to be first-generation college graduates.

“We just want these girls to see that college is a possibility,” said Lane Powell, Mother Daughter Program co-chair. “And not only for them but for their mothers as well.”

Through a series of activities the women are introduced to higher education, as well as the benefits that may come with it and the various means of reaching this educational goal. Pairs are also split up to attend different seminars or do different activities with peers.

For example, mothers may attend a workshop on finding and applying for financial aid, while their daughters may engage in team building exercises such as a construction project when visiting the College of Engineering at Texas Tech.

But in addition to information on higher education, the mothers and daughters also receive a relationship boost, said Powell. She said a requirement of the program is that both mothers and daughters be available for the Saturday activities and trips to the university, which not only increases parental commitment to higher education but also builds bridges ensuring communication between the two.

“This is a wonderful bonding experience for the mothers and daughters,” Powell said. “They do fun things together.”

Flores’s second daughter, Alex, just completed the program at O.L. Slaton Middle School, and Flores said she was excited to be able to spend time with her. She said with three daughters it is sometimes difficult to find time to spend individually with her children.

Flores, who is divorced, said that the girls are given the option to decide whether to stay with her or their father throughout the week.

“Before the program, they weren’t spending a lot of time with me,” Flores said. However, she said things changed once the girls started being able to attend program functions with their mother and get to know another side of each other.

“We have a lot more of a connection now,” Flores said.

She said it was a special experience both for her and her daughters, one that she will continue to cherish in the future.

“It was so much easier to spend time with them one-on-one during the program because I knew we were both excited about it,” Flores said. “We had this time for our Saturday morning when we were just learning something for them. It wasn’t for the whole family and no one else was there for my attention. It was just for them.”

This was especially true for Alex — who, as a middle child, sometimes feels left out, she said.

“She feels so much more like a part of the family,” Flores said. “She’s so much closer to me. Our relationship has gotten way closer.”

Powell said this aspect of the program helps encourage the young girls by having their mothers express their desire to be a part of their daughters’ lives by spending time together.

“These women usually have to work to make their Saturdays free to spend time with their daughters, and their girls see that,” Powell said.

Flores said seeing the condition of the relationships between the pairs at the start of the program was interesting because not all mothers and daughters were very close.

“But pretty much by the end of the time, every daughter is close to her mom,” Flores said.

Beyond building closeness, the mother-daughter pairs also tout the main aspect of the program — exposure to the Texas Tech campus.

The programs plans four Saturday visits to the campus to interact with members of the College of Education, College of Human Sciences, College of Engineering and the Rawls College of Business. During the visits, the women meet successful first-generation female students and get a firsthand look into the study fields of the individual schools.

The Rawls College of Business teaches the girls about budgeting through an activity that simulated their potential earnings and needs based on what type of job they want to do when they are older. The other colleges offered similar activities related to their majors.

During times when the girls were busy in activities, their mothers met with advisers or attended presentations on finances and getting out of debt, potential stumbling blocks for young girls and how to avoid them, and even opportunities should the mothers themselves like to begin to work on a college degree.

Flores said the presentations oftentimes were too short for the mothers’ many questions. For example, she said, the seminar on getting rid of debt had a Q-and-A session that had all the mothers raising their hands and taking notes.

“There just wasn’t enough time for all the questions,” she said. “We had never been sat down to have questions like these answered.”

The experiences had a profound effect on her, she said.

“Things changed for me, just knowing that I didn’t go to college, it seems so much more of a reality knowing that they are going to go to college,” Flores said. “And it also brought me closer to them individually.”

Alex saw the possibilities offered by the program and is excitedly looking toward her future.

“It changes you,” Alex said. “You get to go and see the college, and you get to plan for your future and see what your future will be like.”

Sanjuana Dudzic attended the program with her daughter during the 2009-10 school year and said the possibilities she learned about helped not only her daughter, Gabriela, but her as well.

“Everything is always busy, busy, so I don’t normally get to spend time with her like I should,” Dudzic said. “This forced me to calm down and spend time with her while were in the program. We were both there focused on the same thing.”

Dudzic said that the Tech campus was always intimidating to her. She didn’t visit it in the past because she said she wouldn’t have known where to go or what to do. She’s glad she was introduced to the campus and hopes Gabriela will not feel the same intimidation with it that she did.

“I learned that we need to start thinking about college now, and not only thinking, but preparing,” Dudzic said. “We need to be looking at what kind of classes she needs to be taking to be prepared, and we need to be looking at the finances that they offer.”

Gabriela said she enjoyed the field trips offered by the program and is looking forward to summer camps the Mother Daughter Program helps the girls attend. The camps include stays in the college dorms and introductions to the math and science studies offered in college.

“The program got me thinking, 'What career path do I want to take? What do I want to do in life?’ So it gave me an idea of what college is like,” Gabriela said. “Now I feel more educated about college, and I don’t feel so scared in going as I was before.”

She said she hopes to study computer science or something in the chemical or electrical engineering fields when she eventually reaches college.

Lubbock’s Mother Daughter Program was formed after Powell and then-AAUW Lubbock branch president Joy Vann heard about the same program being put into effect at the University of Texas at El Paso. After seeing the high success rate that the program had accrued after about 20 years in action, local AAUW members decided it was worth looking into for possibilities in the Lubbock community.

“The director was concerned about the low number of Hispanic girls who went to college and also the low number that actually even graduated from high school,” said Powell. She said the program in Lubbock was expanded to meet the needs of any sixth-grade girl who will be a first-generation college student.

“You need to get girls early in their educational path in order to put them on a path for college,” Powell said.

The program’s effects on the girls are obvious, according to Caroline Ysasaga, program coordinator at O.L. Slaton.

She said girls who entered the program as quiet and unsure sixth-graders often left with more self-confidence and a desire to be leaders among their peers. Former program members have gone on to be elected to student council positions, lead clubs and, in general, take on more social responsibility.

“This program just has these girls do some fantastic things to help them know they can make it, that they can succeed, to graduate from high school and to graduate from college,” Powell said.

Flores said her daughter, Natalie, has been out of the program for two years and has kept up with her studies and school involvement as she looks excitedly toward a future at Tech.

“She has good grades,” Flores said. “All A-B, and no Cs. She’s also been student of the week and is in competitive sports.”

Though she’s not sure exactly what she’d like to study, Natalie said it will definitely somehow involve athletics, which is her favorite pastime.

The program is now in its fourth year, with the number of graduates increasing from 10 in the first year to about 30 this year.

Powell said future plans for the program include finding funding for a permanent employee who will keep track of and keep in touch with the girls after they graduate from the program after their sixth-grade year.

Flores said that as long as the program is still around in five years, she is definitely planning to enroll her third daughter, who is currently in the first grade.